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She’s quiet and standoffish now. It’s because I called her out in heat. She’s the same as me, I think, fighting off bad thoughts. Well, we can suffer them together.
I pull up to the junkyard lot, slam the door shut and beckon her out with two fingers. The clerk in the wooden booth is uninterested in my arrival. He barely looks up from his phone, and I make sure the camera never points in my direction.
I knock on the wood to get his attention. “Hey,” I pretend to have a drawl. “Got a car that needs scrapping.”
He does a double take when he looks at it. “That? That’s a classic caddy, guy. Go sell it. Hell, I’d buy it from you if I had the cash.”
I sniff. “Skipping town. I owe some guys some money from an unlucky poker game. Can’t have this showing up anywhere, cause then there’s a trail, you know?”
“Say no more.” The man shakes his head. “That’s why I do my gambling online. DraftKings aren’t going to break my legs, you know?”
“What can I say, I’m a sucker. Mind letting me watch it get crushed, then call me a cab? I’ll tip you nicely.”
“No problem.”
I sigh as I’m walking away, and whisper to Alessia to keep an eye on the kid. Make sure he doesn’t snap any quick photos. I’m going to ask to see his phone at the end of this anyway, just to be sure.
Alessia follows me around like a puppy as I pop the trunk and strip the carpet to reveal a cutout underneath. There’re wads of cash I keep for a special occasion. Donny just cost me a shitload of grief. If nothing else, at least no one knows about my abandoned house. I’d see trespassers coming from a mile away in any direction. Following me there would be suicide.
Thunk.
I shut the trunk and zip the duffel bag closed. My stash is dwindling now. I have two more buried stashes out back in the yard. Thirty thousand each. Not much, if I’m being honest. I’ll need to get to work again eventually.
I’ll let Donny sweat for a bit. See if he backs off. Then maybe when things cool down, I’ll give him a call.
“What if Donny is right?” Alessia whispers begrudgingly. “What if you really are a big target? Can you really handle a whole side of the mafia?”
I grunt and smack the air, dismissing her.
“Hey. The Lucrazis and Barones together aren’t something to laugh at,” she goes on. “We’re sitting ducks in that basement.”
“Don’t call what I built a ‘basement.’ It’s a luxury fucking hotel without the ocean view.” I can see her about to bark back, but I whistle to the clerk. “All ready, man.”
“What’s with the accent?” she whispers.
“Cover,” I whisper back.
“You sound like an idiot.”
“I’ll fit right in with you, then.” We make a face at one another, and inside I’m cackling. I like when she gets spicy. It’s actually kind of entertaining. She’s not desperate like Anabel, or stoic like Maria, or fearful like Gabby or Jane when they’re around me. She’s just… different.
During the hours we spent together, I’ve stopped seeing Marissa in her. The longer I’m around her, the more I’m able to accept that she’s her own person, not a ghost sent from beyond.
The process of rolling the car into the compactor takes a half hour or so, and the clerk is nearly whimpering as it’s crushed. They stripped all the good metal parts first – which was most of the car. I told the guy to keep the salvage cash as a tip. Now he’s like my damn butler. Calling me sir, ridiculously.
“Where y’all lovebirds off to?” he asks as we wait.
“If I told you, I’d have to kill you,” I say, and Alessia punches my arm.
“He’s just kiddin’,” Alessia puts on an awful accent that makes it hard not to laugh. “Thinking maybe Maine, in my hometown.”
“Oh,” he scratches his head. “I thought maybe somewhere fun, like Vegas.”
“Then we’d be piss poor in a day with this one.” She slaps my face lightly.
The three of us laugh, and I yank on her hair playfully to tell her she’s an asshole. I like the smile it puts on her face.
Once the process is done, I politely request to use his phone to call the cab. Being that his tip was somewhere around four hundred dollars, he gives it up without hesitation. I quickly scroll through his recent photos and texts while he’s not looking. Nothing but an active fantasy football app running. Good.
